Boost Sales Right Now: Focus on the 5 Ps

By George Dans

As a business owner, have you ever just wanted to get the broom out and sweep out your entire team because they won't do what you want them to do? You often wonder why your team won't perform or execute what you want them to do. Have you ever worked for a company that couldn't get their arms around their sales team? It gets so bad they can't even get them to show up on time. Now that might not be the case with you, however when companies don't have a Standard Operating Procedure Handbook the result is controlled chaos. There are five areas that can help you improve your profits and raise sales.

For a business to be even more successful today they need to have these first 4 P's in place

1) People

2) Policies

3) Procedures

4) Processes

Let's review them and find how out how you can improve your business today.

1) People - If you have people working for you who are not committed to your team, then you have team breakers. They are like bad apples, you place them in a bushel of nice apples and all they do is rot the rest. Have management find out who is committed, and who isn't. You either tolerate, motivate or eliminate.

2) Policies - Having written policies will clear up miscommunication along with all the excuses you hear people use to cover up their mistakes. Today’s teams need to have clear expectations on how to perform at your company. The last thing you want is the underachievers teaching your new team mate how to break rules or make up their own rules

3) Procedures - Teaching and training your team to execute the procedures is what makes your company different. This is how you do business at your company. Can you imagine having over 100 employees and the 100 of them having a 100 different ways to do business? What happens in business is that as you have employee turn over the procedures become watered down, due to fact that most companies have put training on the shelf behind last year’s goods that you sold. The results are almost fatal, nobody knows what to do or the how to do.

4) Processes - This is more important today than most business owners realize. The process is the how to do it and where the rubber hits the road. How can business's today expect their team to execute if they don't have clear expectations or the skills to execute? Training for most companies has dried up like the Mojave Desert. Companies continually commit business suicide by placing untrained people in profitable positions without trained skills so they fail by default.

Ask any Firefighters and they’ll tell you all they do is train. They never would show up at a fire and say, now what? The captain for the most part would never say, “I have no idea but if you put the wet stuff on the hot stuff that might work, or tell the other guy to do spray and pray or surround and drown.” Trained professional organizations have the right people, backed with policies and procedures that backed with trained people would allow them to follow the process. You can do the same thing, if you have standard operating procedures and follow the above rules. Business isn't about life and death but at times it seems like it when you aren't reaching the profits you need to survive or grow. When you have clear strategies backed with a goal, your team will be able to focus on the main thing. That's the key today, focus on the main thing, and keep the main thing the main thing.

The word focus is a magical word today in business, isn't it? With people being distracted by so many gadgets, bringing their home problems and gossiping about who knows, no wonder employees aren't focused. If you had a line on your financial statement of what it cost to not have your team execute properly, you would need a lifeline of Tums to help you relieve your heartburn. Teams need to be focused today to succeed and lets see what focus and team mean:

If you don't have a course of expectations then you will lose your way along with the 5th P - that is called Profit.  The 5 Ps:

• Proper planning prevents poor performance

• Proper people prevent poor profits

• Proper processes produce productive profits

Using the above material will help you improve your profits and get you control of your team. Look at any successful organization and you will find consistency as one of their backbones. In an inconsistent world we need to be consistent. With a standard operating procedure handbook, you and your company will be standing long after others have fallen victim to their excuses.

Read other articles and learn more about George Dans.

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